# US-Cuba Embargo



## Merovius

Just a few weeks ago the UN voted for an end to the US economic embargo against Cuba in a result of 188-2. The two opposing votes being US and Israel. European nations are backing an end to the embargo more than ever because US legislation is already hitting their pockets and Cuba is on the rise. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez stated "The economic damages accumulated after half a century as a result of the implementation of the blockade amount to $1.126 trillion" adding that, "it provokes hardships and is a mass, flagrant and systematic violation of human rights. The fact that 53 years later the same policy still prevails is something extraordinary and barbaric. The blockade has been classified as an act of genocide under the Geneva Convention of 1948." Strong words indeed, especially when the rest of the world is supporting them.

US envoy Ronald Godard retorted that Cuba "still has one of the most restrictive economic systems in the world" and that the US allows monetary aid to Cuba. He even went as far as "The United States is a deep and abiding friend of the Cuban people," pretty stubborn and really a huge slap in the face. With comments like this I personally dont see any change soon. However, if the US's stance is that Cuba does not have the infrastructure to be worthwhile and if Cuba continues to develop trade ports (article on new Cuban port) along with a functioning democracy, then the US government wont have much of a leg to stand on. If the right conditions align, I could see the embargo being lifted in 3-5 years.

Id love to hear peoples thoughts.


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## Herf N Turf

The only greater violator of human rights than Cuba, is China. Cuba has been and remains in desperate economic conditions for one reason; the Cuban government. They killed thousands of their own people and hundreds of American civilians and servicemen to get that government and have stuck to it ever since. I see no reason to reward the regime.

I'd also really appreciate the UN staying the FK out of our congress. We have a hard enough time as it is.


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## OnePyroTec

All those 188 countries that voted to lift OUR embargo are perfectly FREE to help Cuba in anyway they wish. I laugh at Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez for blaming the U.S. for their economic woes when they have all their "friends" who will not lift a finger or open their wallets for the welfare that Cuba seeks and seems to feel entitled to from the U.S.


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## Herf N Turf

Meyer Lansky was a vastly better steward of Cuba than the Castro regime.

I would also really appreciate it if the UN would stop pretending to be our congress. We have a hard enough time as it is.


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## LGHT

Herf N Turf said:


> The only greater violator of human rights than Cuba, is China. Cuba has been and remains in desperate economic conditions for one reason; the Cuban government. They killed thousands of their own people and hundreds of American civilians and servicemen to get that government and have stuck to it ever since. I see no reason to reward the regime.
> 
> I'd also really appreciate the UN staying the FK out of our congress. We have a hard enough time as it is.


I totally agree. If cuba wants change and better for their country it needs to start with them not us.


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## asmartbull

The UN can kiss my fat *ss

For selfish reasons I like things just the way they are....

Edit 1:

Howdy Don !


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## knilas

Really sick if the UN sticking their nose in our business! 
Keep the embargo til Cuba wakes up and changes their archaic ways. 

No to Cuba!
No to the Small Arms Treaty too!


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## Wicked_Rhube

I doubt it would be lifted that soon without a total shift in their leadership. There is no compelling reason for the US to lift it. Add me to the who gives a s#!t what the UN has to say. They seem to hem and haw over our injustices while whistling by the graveyard when it comes to China or Russia.


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## Hiroshiro

Cuba deserves the Embargo lifted so it can trade with a great economic power so close to it. The cigar smoker in me however prefers this not to happened at the millennium with so many poorly made cigars...


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## Carpenter69

We have enough economic woes on our plate. Do we really need to try and structure 3 govts at once. How thin are we willing to spread ourselves. Christ sakes, we have children starving in America, why do we need another welfare state.


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## NasierK

Herf N Turf said:


> The only greater violator of human rights than Cuba, is China. Cuba has been and remains in desperate economic conditions for one reason; the Cuban government. They killed thousands of their own people and hundreds of American civilians and servicemen to get that government and have stuck to it ever since. I see no reason to reward the regime.
> 
> *I'd also really appreciate the UN staying the FK out of our congress.* We have a hard enough time as it is.


I hope you won't take it the wrong way as I'm about to bud in (as a foreigner / European). While your view seems to be "It's not for the UN to call wether or not our congress should lift the embargo." which seems like a valid point at first I would have to disagree.

Let's forget for a second that it was president Frankling D Roosevelt who initiated the talks that lead to this organisation we know today as the UN, which mission it is to promote international cooperation and that the US is still (by their own choice) a member of this organisation.

The most important reason why I would disagree is that in the same way you think it's not for the UN to stick their nose in congress' business, I believe it's not for congress to stick their nose in your business. The choice should be yours (as a person) wether or not you do business or travel to Cuba. It's the goverment task to provide you with information (ie: through primo education) so you can make a well thought through decission. Basically the UN voted for giving the right to choose back to you and your fellow citizens. Something I'm all for as I'm a firm believer off small goverments. Where you travel to or buy your cigars from should be up to you (home of the brave and land of the *free*)

Don't get me wrong. I'm not critizing *your* goverment per say. I'm critizing goverments in general. The EU has several embargoes too. It should be my choice wether or not I export luxury products to Korea or Syria, import diamonds from Ivory Coast or open a bankaccount in Egypt. All those things are currently forbidden by embargoes for EU citizens. Not that I do or wish to do any of those things but I believe the choice should be mine. Heck I'm not even allowed to buy my cigars overseas. It was me trading my sweat for those Euros in my pocket so if I want to spend them on CB I should be able to do so.


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## Blue Raccoon

Cuba is the way it is because or Fidel Castro. It has been free to trade with everyone in the world but the US for the past 50 years and it still is what it is a giant cesspool.


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## tnlawyer

First flight in 50 years from Key West to Cuba takes off | New York Post

Interesting article. Still a long way from the embargo being lifted though.


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## KcJason1

Wait.. What? There's an Embargo? I would of never guessed....

I'm fine with it staying in pace... I'm with Al on this one.


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## Laptime61

The only problem i have with the embargo is getting cigars, but hey good things dont come easy. Plus it makes it a fun challenge to get them and it makes you enjoy them a little more, not that i do that or anything..... But otherwise i dont care about it.


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## tedski

The US embargo with Cuba is well past it's meaningful stage ... by about 30 years. They have a corrupt socialist government that violates human rights. So does China and Russia - and we trade freely with them to the tune of about $600 Billion in 2013 alone. Sounds pretty hypocritical to me. (Or should I say political.)

If Cuba had lots of oil or rare earth metal reserves, our government would have opened the gates of trade long ago.


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## TonyBrooklyn

Babalú Blog | ...an island on the net without a bearded dictator

Tourists and travel to Cuba: What the travel agencies don't tell you about crime

"Cuba has the lowest crime rate in the Western Hemisphere. Even in neighborhoods that you would avoid in other major cities (such as much of Centro Havana) you are unlikely to suffer any incidents of violent crime. Incidents, which do happen, are generally tied into a more personal encounter with 'dubious characters'." - Christopher Baker in Cuba Absolutely and duplicated in Visit Cuba FAQs
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u2tW9wanaFc/UtBGVYlt_-I/AAAAAAAAHfE/EaruP5_N4CU/s1600/CUBANOAMERICANO.JPG

Brandon Ross died under suspicious circumstances in Cuba in 2013

On November 22, 2013 Brandon Bjorn Ross, a 31 year old American resident visiting Cuba with his mother Onelia Ross, who is of Cuban origin, went out to take pictures in the early morning around the Hotel Nacional in Havana. The next time his mom saw him was at the morgue to identify her son's body. Government officials said that he had fallen from the roof of the hotel, but refused to provide Onelia an autopsy report and quickly cremated her son's body without her authorization. This despite Canadian offers to cover costs to ship the body home. Onelia (age 55) is an accountant who left Cuba 36 years ago when she met and married a Canadian diplomat who was posted in Havana. She had never spoken critically of the Cuban government until June of 2005 when she had a problem with an entry permit to enter the island.

The claim at the top of the page relies on statistics and reports provided by the Cuban government and is contradicted by the suspicious death of Brandon Ross. There are plenty of reasons to question the veracity of the claims made by promoters of Cuban travel. Additionally, the last sentence provides a loophole that can be used to intimidate victims or their families from coming forward. It is essentially saying that when one visits Cuba one will not get into trouble unless one is looking for it.

The Castro regime and its agents of influence can do the rest to smear a victim of crime in Cuba, in order to preserve its reputation as a safe travel destination. If they do it all the time with human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience that they have killed then why not apply it to visitors when it serves their interests?

Despite this tactic other victims of crime in Cuba are known. Below are a few high profile examples.

eace:eace:eace:eace:eace:


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## cakeanddottle

tedski said:


> The US embargo with Cuba is well past it's meaningful stage ... by about 30 years.
> 
> If Cuba had lots of oil or rare earth metal reserves, our government would have opened the gates of trade long ago.


this is right on the money


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## TonyBrooklyn

U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba - ABC News

Home> U.S. 
U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba N E W Y O R K, May 1, 2001
By David Ruppe

In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba. 
Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities. 
The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro. 
America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation." 
Details of the plans are described in Body of Secrets (Doubleday), a new book by investigative reporter James Bamford about the history of America's largest spy agency, the National Security Agency. However, the plans were not connected to the agency, he notes. 
The plans had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, in March 1962. But they apparently were rejected by the civilian leadership and have gone undisclosed for nearly 40 years. 
"These were Joint Chiefs of Staff documents. The reason these were held secret for so long is the Joint Chiefs never wanted to give these up because they were so embarrassing," Bamford told ABCNEWS.com. 
"The whole point of a democracy is to have leaders responding to the public will, and here this is the complete reverse, the military trying to trick the American people into a war that they want but that nobody else wants." 
Gunning for War 
The documents show "the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government," writes Bamford. 
The Joint Chiefs even proposed using the potential death of astronaut John Glenn during the first attempt to put an American into orbit as a false pretext for war with Cuba, the documents show. 
Should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, they wrote, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof &#8230; that the fault lies with the Communists et all Cuba [sic]." 
The plans were motivated by an intense desire among senior military leaders to depose Castro, who seized power in 1959 to become the first communist leader in the Western Hemisphere - only 90 miles from U.S. shores. 
The earlier CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles had been a disastrous failure, in which the military was not allowed to provide firepower.The military leaders now wanted a shot at it. 
"The whole thing was so bizarre," says Bamford, noting public and international support would be needed for an invasion, but apparently neither the American public, nor the Cuban public, wanted to see U.S. troops deployed to drive out Castro. 
Reflecting this, the U.S. plan called for establishing prolonged military - not democratic - control over the island nation after the invasion. 
"That's what we're supposed to be freeing them from," Bamford says. "The only way we would have succeeded is by doing exactly what the Russians were doing all over the world, by imposing a government by tyranny, basically what we were accusing Castro himself of doing." 
'Over the Edge'

:ask::ask::ask::ask::ask::ask::ask:

Two very different tales two very different images of two countries involved in the most lubricious embargo ever IMHO!
That being said its a great rule here not to discuss politics.
With all this mis information surrounding it i see how it would be real easy to start a big argument quickly!
:thumb::thumb::thumb:


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## TonyBrooklyn

tedski said:


> The US embargo with Cuba is well past it's meaningful stage ... by about 30 years. They have a corrupt socialist government that violates human rights. So does China and Russia - and we trade freely with them to the tune of about $600 Billion in 2013 alone. Sounds pretty hypocritical to me. (Or should I say political.)
> 
> If Cuba had lots of oil or rare earth metal reserves, our government would have opened the gates of trade long ago.


Don't know if that really holds up as a model against America in this case. I know its constantly used in the finger pointing at America and its involvement in wars. But from what i have read Off the shore of Cuba are some of the richest Crude oil deposits. True it is very Sulfur rich and requires advanced refinement processes. That has never stopped anyone before. You know i gotta laugh no body wants war of course. But no one is ready to give up all that stuff that makes everyone so comfortable!

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41522.pdf


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## stonecutter2

The embargo was just part of the wave of seemingly anti-Communist hysteria that gripped the US in the 50's and 60's. McCarthyism had people accusing others as Communists either validly, or just to "take care of them." Can't look weak against the Communists. That's why we went into Vietnam, too. Those darn communists, we need to save the world from them all. In the end, it hasn't achieved much except shown that the US can be quite determined and resolved to fighting, or backing up words with actions.

Vietnam has been Communist for a long time. Cuba too. China as well. Yet we buy tons of stuff from China all of the time. And Vietnam has shown up as a manufacturer on various articles, too. Clothing is what I've noticed. Both of those governments have done terrible things, and let's face it, so has our government. No one is a saint on this planet of ours. 

I honestly feel the embargo is a total disaster, and there just isn't enough motivation for the US to admit and just put an end to it. However, the UN's obvious disapproval (it's an international forum essentially, and one that the US helped found) should be enough to get people rethinking our stubborn stance. Time will tell.

I doubt it will ever be lifted before Fidel Castro passes away.


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## KcJason1

Laptime61 said:


> The only problem i have with the embargo is getting cigars, but hey good things dont come easy. Plus it makes it a fun challenge to get them and it makes you enjoy them a little more, not that i do that or anything..... But otherwise i dont care about it.


you realize if the embargo was lifted the quality would go down for at least 5 years as they couldn't meet demand?


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## tnlawyer

I don't understand how anyone can view the situation in Cuba through cigar-tinted glasses. The embargo (and the regime) are hurting the Cuban people big time. If opening things up will provide some relief to the Cuban people, then I'm all for it. Screw the cigars.


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## Shaz

One thing I think that's being overlooked here is that opening trade relations with Cuba would not go over very well with many of the Cuban ex-pats living mostly in the Florida area. Many of these people were robbed of their homes and livelihood when the Castro regime took over and nationalized everything. And we know Florida is a very important swing state in an election. This is probably one of the biggest stumbling blocks to any potential lifting of the embargo.


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## Laptime61

KcJason1 said:


> you realize if the embargo was lifted the quality would go down for at least 5 years as they couldn't meet demand?


Never thought of it that way, very true. ill just stock up before :heh:


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## Bruck

Won't happen till Fidel, and probably Raoul too, kicks the bucket.


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## asmartbull

friends in the State Dept tell me that the embargo is not likely to be lifted in our lifetime.
To political....to many other trade agreements already in place.......


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## TonyBrooklyn

my friends and I have a standing joke since the 80s three things that will never happen in our lifetime first is the Jets are in let alone when another Superbowl the second is the Cuban embargo being lifted the third is we all get date with Pam Anderson laugh out loud


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## jacko

Bruck said:


> Won't happen till Fidel, and probably Raoul too, kicks the bucket.


I agree, i always got the sense that they were just waiting for him to die. The embargo is ridiculous, there are very few governments who have clean hands in world politics, maybe we should embargo the US for its involvement in numerous breaches of the Geneva convention in Iraq, and we can embargo China for their continued lack of Freedom of information and we can embargo the UK for the murder of civilians in Derry in the 70's ......oh wait who do we trade with now


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## Myrddwn

One the one hand, if the Cuban government really cared about its people they would completely reform and stop the humanitarian crimes; so in this I support the embargo. On the other hand, as others have said, we still trade with other tyrannical regimes. Too bad Cuba only has tobacco, and not oil, huh?
As for getting hold of Cuban cigars, I could care less. There are so many other great cigars out there, I don't feel I need access to Cubans as well.


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## Tobias Lutz

jacko said:


> and we can embargo China for their continued lack of Freedom of information


Oh no, then there wouldn't be a single computer or i-phone to be had and everyone would disappear from Puff :lol: Not to mention- where would I get my never ending supply of toys with traces of lead and apple juice with arsenic for my young 'uns?


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